Astronauts bake cookies in space

WASHINGTON: Astronauts on the International Space Station have baked the first cookies in space, but they took far longer than on Earth.

The space station’s Italian commander Luca Parmitano acted as baker aided by Nasa astronaut Christina Koch for the chocolate-chip cookie experiment. Cookies take around 15-20 minutes to bake on Earth but the astronauts discovered that their most successful efforts required at least two hours in the oven in space. The first and second cookies were in the oven for 25 minutes and 75 minutes but were still under-baked. The best results came from 120 and 130 minutes in the oven.

"We made space cookies and milk for Santa this year," Koch tweeted on Friday. The prototype oven which can be used in microgravity was designed and built by Nanoracks and Zero G Kitchen while the Double Tree by Hilton hotel chain supplied the raw cookie dough.